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Anti-democratic Tory ‘finagling’ to push hated Bill
THE Tories were only able to push through their hated Housing Bill by making MPs stay in the Commons on Tuesday night until 3am, trade unionists said yesterday.
Construction workers union Ucatt denounced the government for dragging out the debate in “an act of wilful anti-democratic finagling.”
Few MPs were left when the last amendments to the Bill were tabled in the early hours.
Ucatt’s acting general secretary Brian Rye said: “With these sly, underhand and anti-democratic tricks, Cameron and Osborne bring the simplistic atmosphere of the public-school bully into our great democracy.
“This wholly partisan act of forcing through legislation they know is detrimental to the majority of the poor of this country is a shameful act and yet one wholly in character for their class and their party.
“Council housing is one of the reasons the poor of this nation were lifted out of Victorian poverty.”
He added: “From the first council housing in Boundary Street in Shoreditch, east London, in 1893 this country has looked after its working population by providing a safe and warm home for the less well-off.
“It was a mark of our civilised society, a society for everyone.
“But not any more. Cameron and Osborne should be ashamed of themselves but, as we all know, they will patting each other on the back, as they go for lunch at the club.
“This is an act of a ruling elite trying to govern a country like a personal fiefdom. This Tory government is robbing the poor to give to the rich, and Ucatt and the labour movement will fight it.”
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